NOT SO DIFFERENT FROM THE TECH BILLIONAIRES
Across Asia, Huang’s techno-optimism that AI shouldn’t be another zero-sum game was infectious. I remember catching a glimpse of him last year in Taipei, on the island where he was born, where seemingly every surprise appearance generated a Taylor Swift-like welcome.
Even then, I wrote that it was hard not to worry about how easily he could be set up for a fall as his role evolved from geeky video games wonk to global AI kingpin.
Yet his dramatic plunge from grace since the weekend has been so shocking partly because the honey-trap story feels so depressingly low-tech.
Despite being the boss of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, with his own net worth topping US$150 billion, Huang had cultivated an image that separated him from the rest of the billionaire tech class.
He seemed unusually genuine when stopping by night markets and local pubs across Asia to grab a beer or bowl of noodles, and still talked about washing dishes at Denny’s as a teen in the US. Huang, 63, spoke warmly and often about his wife of 41 years, whom he met when she was his electrical engineering lab partner.
The story goes that he eventually came up with the idea for Nvidia while at a Denny’s, before growing it to become the more-than-US$4 trillion behemoth it is today. And now this, as if the AI-wary American public needed another reminder to never put any tech executive on a pedestal.
For people already angry about an out-of-touch broligarchy accumulating extraordinary wealth and political influence – and who delivered a stunning verdict on it in last week’s midterm elections – one of the industry’s last charismatic ambassadors suddenly looks a lot like the rest.
